The Magnificent Glass Globe

by N. R Bergeson

Ike seemed satisfied by the answer, and Mary suggested they stay at least three hours, just to be sure.

  “Fine by me,” Ike agreed. “Like you said, better out here then back there with the crazy guy.”

  Throughout their conversation, Mary watched as the massive earth grew before them. She could still feel the globe, now held more tightly in her hands than ever. She pressed as hard as she could, not daring to take her finger off the glass.

  Exploring the amazing view before her, Mary’s fear from being held at gunpoint slowly dissolved. Her heart rate slowed, and her thoughts instead turned to the exhilarating experience of zooming in toward this indescribably beautiful view. It was far more vivid than any of her imagined adventures had ever been.

  Staying out here for a few hours won’t be that bad at all, she thought.

  Secretly, Mary suspected she could stay out there for much longer if she wanted to. The wall map in the museum that she so dearly loved seemed small and dull compared to the magnificent view before her now.

  Still, Mary was troubled by the fact that she didn’t know how this globe worked. Question after question raced through her mind as she tried to puzzle out the remarkable object. Was it connected to a satellite or telescope? How close would they zoom in if she kept pressing?

  “How close to the earth do you think this will take us?” asked Helen, as if reading Mary’s mind.

  “I don’t know,” Mary answered. “But since we have time, why don’t we find out?”

  Mary wasn’t paying attention to where she pointed at first, but almost subconsciously, began guiding their descent in the direction of the Amazon. As the world got bigger, Mary periodically made slight adjustments by sliding her finger along the glass. She did this instinctively, and it worked. As her finger moved, so did the center of their descent.

  The Amazon steadily grew more visible. Its thousands of arms branched through the rainforest. They were now so close that Mary could no longer see the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans to either side of South America. All she saw was a giant mass of green, stretching as far as her eyes could see. Though no borders nor labels were visible, Mary guessed they were approaching somewhere near the point where Brazil, Colombia, and Peru all met.

  As they zoomed in even closer, more details became clear. Mary could plainly make out the tops of thousands of trees, all bunched up together to create a solid, vast canopy of leaves.

  “Birds!” Ike yelled.

  Mary looked, and saw a colorful flock flying far below. They were tiny from this distance, but there was no mistaking those striking blues, reds, and golds.

  “They’re macaws,” Mary said, amazed. “And we can actually see them flying. I wonder if we’re really looking at what’s happening in this part of the world right now?”

  Eventually, their descent slowed down. Despite the wonder of the experience, Mary couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that she couldn’t get even closer. She wanted the experience of actually being in the Amazon.

  Still, they hadn’t stopped yet, so Mary kept pressing her finger firmly against the glass, hoping that there would still be more to see.

  Ike, from behind, fidgeted and shifted in an attempt to get a better view.

  “Be careful!” Mary warned. “What if you accidentally let go?”

  “Sorry,” Ike said. “I’m just trying to see better.”

  “Try now,” Mary said, lifting her elbow.

  Ike adjusted his position, attempting to look under Mary’s raised arm. As he did, he smacked his head squarely against her elbow. The jolt caused Mary’s finger to slide far along the glass. Their position shifted rapidly, with green trees flying by beneath them. Mary couldn’t tell where they were, and the land turned to a green blur. She steadied her finger, trying to get their view of the Amazon back into focus.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Mary yelled, as their shifting slowed and trees took shape once again.

  The river was now nowhere to be seen.

  “Let go, Mary!” Ike pleaded suddenly. “Please! Something isn’t right.”

  “What are you talking about? Everything was fine until you … ”

  Mary’s words trailed off as the picture came back into full focus. During the confusion of the shifting map, she hadn’t realized how close they’d gotten. The trees were right below them. If this were real, her feet would almost be touching the leaves.

  And to Mary’s surprise, they did.

  Her shoes brushed against the top of the canopy. The moment they made contact, everything changed. In an instant, Mary could no longer feel the glass against her finger, nor the floor beneath her feet.

  Instead, Mary felt different sensations. Falling. Leaves and branches scraping against her body as she tumbled into a very real tree.

  Ike and Helen were screaming, but Mary could hardly hear them over her own cries of fear. She bounced like a pinball between branches as she fell. A moment later, it all stopped as her head hit hard against a branch, and everything went dark.

  How Did We Get Here?

  Mary groaned as she tried to open her eyes. Her head throbbed with pain.

  “Leave me alone!” she moaned, her eyes refusing to fully open. “Just let me sleep.”

  Whoever was trying to wake her needed to stop. In her groggy delirium, she wondered who had such tiny hands.

  Her tormentor was persistent, brushing Mary’s cheek. Whoever it was felt warm and … hairy? That was strange. It was enough for Mary to finally force open her heavy eyelids.

  She felt so dizzy! Blurry lights and shadows flashed before her. Everything looked green. Someone hovered directly above her hazy line of vision. She tried to focus.

  “Mom?” Mary asked. “Is that you? What happened? Why’s it so loud? Why’s everything green?”

  Mary felt so confused, and she needed answers. But Mom didn’t reply to any of the questions. She simply stood there, silently watching. As Mary’s focus cleared, the details of Mom’s face finally came into view.

  Mary screamed, and Mom hurriedly jumped away.

  Only it wasn’t Mom. It wasn’t even another person! With a jolt, Mary snapped wide awake, the grogginess she felt immediately evaporating.

  A monkey?

  Mary screamed again, and the gray little monkey, with its black mask-patterned face, moved even further away. When it had moved far enough away, the monkey turned to her and bared its teeth.

  Mary sat up quickly, frightened yet anxious to know where she was. She clearly wasn’t in her bedroom.

  As soon as Mary was upright, her whole body lost its balance and started falling into thin air. She cried out, and instinctively flailed her outstretched arms, hoping to grab onto anything.

  Luckily, her hand caught hold of a branch. Mary held on with all of her might as she regained her balance. Nearby, several of the little monkeys congregated, chattering loudly.

  She was in a tree! How could that be possible?

  Sure enough, as Mary scanned her immediate surroundings, she saw nothing but branches and leaves in every direction.

  This wasn’t one of her imagined adventures. As real as her imagination had been able to make things feel, it paled in comparison to what she was experiencing now.

  With a sudden surge of vertigo, Mary realized what it meant. This was no imagined tree, and she was truly somewhere high above the ground. She’d climbed plenty of trees before, and didn’t think she was afraid of heights. But her stomach told her otherwise. Judging by what she could see, this tree was much bigger than any she’d ever climbed before. She braced herself and slowly looked down, searching for the ground. The thick leaves made it nearly impossible to see, but Mary found a small gap, just wide enough to give her a glimpse of the ground below.

  Mary’s fears were confirmed when she saw that she was more than one hundred feet above the ground. Dizziness surged through her, and she clung to the nearest branch for dear life. She was most definitely afraid of heights after all.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Mary tried to push out all thoughts of plummeting to the ground.

  Her head was ringing. She tried to focus, and figure out how she had ended up in such an enormous tree. It was impossible for her to climb this high. Panic set in and her thoughts were a jumble. Yet amidst all the confusion, a voice echoed in her mind.

  “Let go, Mary!”

  Ike’s voice. He’d been yelling at her to let go of something. But what?

  With a flash of recognition, it all came back. Mary recalled the old travel case and the globe. She remembered touching the globe in an attempt to escape from the old janitor.

  “Oh, no,” she gasped in disbelief.

  Impossible as it seemed, the globe had brought her to the rainforest. What other explanation could there be?

  “Let go, Mary!” Ike’s voice echoed again in her spinning head.

  Ike and Helen! With horror, Mary remembered that they’d been with her when she fell. But where were they now?

  As her imagination raced with horrible thoughts of what might have happened to them, it became too much for Mary to bear. She began to cry uncontrollably. She clung to the nearest branch, terrified of falling, with tears streaming down her cheeks. She choked out sobs as she battled awful thoughts of having killed her little brother and her best friend. It was all her fault!

  “Helen! Ike!” Mary called out, hoping for a miracle.

  It didn’t do much good. Her voice was weak with fear, and the noise of rainforest drowned out what little sound she managed. She swallowed and tried again, calling out for Helen and Ike repeatedly. Her voice grew steadily louder, and soon she was yelling their names at the top of her lungs. Her yelling excited the troop of monkeys, who jabbered loudly and swung from branch to branch.

  “Mary?”

  A soft voice called to her from somewhere up above. Mary stopped yelling and strained to listen through the din of the canopy.

  “Mary?”

  It was just loud enough for her to make out the voice.

  “Ike!” she cried back. “I’m here.”

  A surge of relief flooded through her as she realized that her brother was alive.

  “What happened?” he called back. “Where are we?”

  “Hold on,” Mary yelled in reply. “Keep talking, and I’ll find you.”

  Mary knew she’d need to loosen her grip on the branch and climb. Even the thought made her throbbing head pound harder. But she didn’t have a choice. Taking a deep breath, Mary stood, her feet wobbling on the branch. It took all of her concentration to not think about the long way down.

  At first she moved at a snail’s pace, deliberately testing each branch to ensure it would support her weight. The tree and its branches were strong, but being cautious was the only thing that gave her enough courage to keep climbing.

  It was more physically challenging than she imagined, and sweat poured down her face in the stifling humidity. Mary wiped her eyes as she peered through the leaves above her, hoping to see some sign of Ike.

  Finally, she spied a pair of tennis shoes dangling through the branches.

  “I see you!” she cried out.

  A moment later, panting from the challenging climb, she came face to face with her little brother. The mischievous look that could almost always be found on his face was nowhere to be seen. His eyes were red and swollen from crying.

  “Where are we, Mary?” he asked with a sniff.

  “We’re in the rainforest,” she told him.

  His eyes widened.

  “How did we get here?”

  “I don’t really know,” Mary said. “It was the globe. I guess it does more than just letting us look at the world up close.”

  Understatement of the year, Mary thought.

  Ike stared blankly into the trees as he considered the unbelievable news. He didn’t say anything for a moment, and Mary watched as fresh tears welled up in his eyes.

  “I want to go home!” he cried.

  Mary typically felt little compassion for her obnoxious brother, but right now, she just wanted to assure him that everything would be alright. She knew exactly how he felt. Despite the hours she’d spent fantasizing about a trip to the Amazon, now that she was here, Mary only wanted to be home. She held onto a branch with one arm, and put her other arm around her little brother, hugging him tightly.

  “I know. I want to go home too,” she said.

  Mary didn’t know what else to say, but tried to sound confident and encouraging. She definitely didn’t feel that way.

  “Come on, let’s go find Helen and make sure she’s alright, and then we’ll find a way to get home,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as Ike.

  Mary searched for whatever spark of confidence she could find. They were in this mess, and it was all her fault. She was responsible to get them all home. Mary didn’t know how, but she was determined to find a way.

  Finding Helen

  “We have to climb up?” Ike asked, alarmed. “I thought we wanted to get down?”

  “What if Helen’s above us?” Mary reasoned. “We need to find her first. Then we’ll climb down.”

  Ike wasn’t convinced. The thought of climbing higher obviously didn’t sit well with him. Not that Mary was looking forward to it either.

  “Come on!” she encouraged. “It’ll be just like climbing trees at the park.”

  Mary was beginning to feel less frightened by climbing, but Ike was clearly still petrified.

  “Okay, well then why don’t you stay here,” Mary offered, starting to climb. “I’ll check above us, and you can wait for me.”

  “Wait! Don’t leave me,” said Ike with alarm.

  Cautiously, he stood on the limb.

  “Look above you,” Mary said, gesturing toward the sunlight that filtered through the leaves. “We were together when we fell. See how some of the branches are broken in a path that leads directly up? We did that. Helen’s either somewhere right above us, or straight below us. If we start at the top and climb down this line of broken branches, we’ll find her.”

  Ike nodded, and Mary hoped she was right. She climbed past Ike, leading toward the treetop. Ike climbed slowly, testing each branch as Mary had done at first.

  Mary moved forward, concentrating so intently on her climbing that she didn’t notice when something unexpectedly appeared before her face. She almost let go in surprise. It was long and thin, and dangled from a clump of leaves. At first thinking it might be a snake, Mary quickly realized it wasn’t alive. It was a green, canvas strap.

  What was it doing here? Mary reached out and gave the strap a slight tug. As soon as she did, a backpack materialized and tumbled from the branch above.

  “What is it?” Ike asked.

  “Grandpa’s backpack!” Mary said excitedly. “It’s the one we found in his travel case. I was wearing it when we touched the globe. I must’ve come off as we fell.”

  Mary remembered something else.

  “Ike! The machete! Were you still holding it?”

  Ike thought for a moment.

  “I think so,” he said, unsure. “But I probably dropped it if I was.”

  With luck, it fell through the trees and was somewhere on the ground below. The thought gave Mary a little hope, helping to fend off the despair she felt every time she thought about their impossible situation.

  The higher she climbed, the thinner the branches grew. Mary was getting close to the top. It made her nervous, but she wouldn’t stop until she found Helen or reached the top.

  Finally, Mary reached a point where she could peek her head out above the treetop. Like a prairie dog emerging from a hole, her head emerged above the canopy.

  The amazing view nearly took her breath away, and made Mary suddenly feel incredibly small. She was surrounded by a vast sea of green leaves that stretched as far as she could see. The sun shone down on the trees, creating a shimmering brightness. Mary knew that most of the sunlight would
never fully penetrate the thick canopy and reach the rainforest floor. But up here, everything was bright and alive. She watched in awe as hundreds of magnificent, colorful birds soared in and out of the trees.

  “Wow!” she whispered.

  It hit her that she was finally here. She was actually in the rainforest. For a brief moment, Mary put her fears aside and drank in the fact that she was living her dream.

  It didn’t last long. Mary’s mind returned to Helen, and she reluctantly tore away from the bewitching view.

  “That was amazing!” Mary told Ike, who’d been waiting a few limbs below. “You really should climb up and see for yourself. Green trees stretching on forever!”

  “So, you really like leaves, eh?” Ike asked.

  Mary laughed, something she rarely did at Ike’s sarcasm. Right now, she was just happy for any sign that he was getting back to his usual self.

  “No thanks, anyway,” he continued. “I’m fine just getting down as soon as we can.”

  “Alright,” Mary said, winking at her brother. “Let’s find Helen.”

  Mary led the down along the path of broken branches, all the while calling out for Helen. There was no reply, though the constant noise of the rainforest made it hard to hear anything other than chattering monkeys, squawking birds, and humming insects.

  The further they went, the more Mary began to fear the worst. They’d been climbing for a while, still without any sign of her best friend. Eventually they’d run out of branches.

  “I see her!” Ike suddenly cried out.

  “Where?” Mary asked, frantically searching.

  Ike pointed, and sure enough, Mary spotted Helen’s legs draped over a branch below. Her heart leapt with encouragement, and she scrambled toward Helen as quickly as she dared. As the rest of Helen’s body came into view, Mary saw that her eyes were closed, and she lay very still. She hoped with all of her heart that Helen was only unconscious.

  Mary was almost to Helen when Ike grabbed her by the shirt.

  “Wait!” he cried.

  “What is it?” she asked, confused.